FLY TIPPING is costing our authorities tens of thousands of pounds a year, government data has shown.

The clean-up cost to the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead was £61,640 last year after it encountered 675 incidents - a rise from 584 in 2016. Meanwhile in Slough, flytipping was in fact down last year with 534 separate incidents compared to 674 the year before. However the cost was still £16,028.

South Bucks experienced a slight rise, from 549 incidents to 566, although its costs were much higher with the cost to the taxpayer a total of £28,573.

The figures however, do not include fly-tipping on private land, since in many cases the landowners must pay to have it removed themselves.

Whilst farmers elect to deal with the problem themselves, an average cost of £1,000 hits the landowners who require help to cart away the waste.

The fly-tipping problem worsens in January every year, as people begin to discard old Christmas trees and decorations in roadsides and fields.